School Board Meeting today 8/15/12

The School Board has a long meeting planned for this afternoon. There's a long list of items on the consent agenda (9), for introduction(4), and for action (8). Most of them aren't very interesting, but they will take time.



Among the more interesting items are:

• The Personnel Report has some big names in it, including the superintendent (as a hire), Aurora Lora, and Holly Ferguson.
  
• The final acceptance of the BEX III work done at Chief Sealth/Denny. That project is officially done.
  
• A Partnership Agreement with the City of Seattle which is a requisite part of the Families and Education Levy.
  
• Policy 0030, Ensuring Educational and Racial Equity, is largely a bunch of aspirational goals and values statements. It's nearly all a lot of blah, blah, blah. The only enforceable part comes near the end:

The Superintendent is authorized to develop procedures to implement this policy, including an action plan with clear accountability and metrics. At least annually the Superintendent shall report to the School Board on the progress towards achieving the goals outlined in this policy.

You'll notice that the Superintendent is authorized to develop procedures, but he is not required to do so.

• I'm curious about why the Annual application for Highly Capable Grant isn't on the consent agenda. What is there to discuss?
  
• The new Program Placement Policy, 2200, now called Equitable Access to Programs and Services. This policy, oddly, exempts most programs from the policy. The policy reads:

This policy addresses the development of new programs or services, the replication of existing programs or services, as well as the closing and/or relocation of existing programs or services throughout the district, to the extent that those programs or services have an impact on budgets, hiring or placement of staff, or on space within a building.

Among the "programs" that do not have an impact on budgets, staffing, or space are: language immersion programs, international programs, IB programs, alternative programs, STEM programs, ALOs, and most Spectrum programs. Following the adoption of this policy, the authority to create, close, or move these programs will be taken out of the superintendent's hands and become a site-based decision. That's actually one of the state goals of the policy according to the Board Action Report.

While Director McLaren's amendments to the policy fixes some of the policy's deep flaws, it doesn't fix this one because it leaves the constraining language in place. I have to wonder what positive effect some people think this language provides.

• Among the introduction items is the $2 million that State Rep. Eric Pettigrew slipped into the state budget for two schools in southeast Seattle.